Water Quality Improvements
Protecting Hanalei's precious waterways is at the heart of our mission. With the ongoing health of our rivers, streams, and bay at risk, it’s essential that we take action to address the pollution affecting these vital ecosystems. Our work is focused on identifying key sources of contamination and implementing sustainable solutions to safeguard our natural resources for future generations.
At the Hanalei Initiative, we are dedicated to enhancing the water quality of our rivers, streams, and bay. We recognize the complex challenges surrounding this issue and are actively working on solutions.
The first step in solving a problem is understanding it. Through scientific research, we know that outdated wastewater systems—specifically cesspools—are significant contributors to pollution in Hanalei’s natural water systems (Yamahara et al. 2020, Boehm et al. 2011, Knee et al. 2010).
Using publicly available data and insights from local experts, we've created the map below, which identifies over 360 active cesspools from Hanalei to Hā‘ena. We’ve ranked these cesspools based on their relative risk to both the environment and human health. These rankings are determined by assessing several factors, including groundwater depth, proximity to the coastline, cesspool density, and other key variables:
Since 2004, the Hawaii Department of Health (HDOH) has listed some combination of Hanalei Bay and the four streams that feed into it (Hanalei, Wai`oli, Waipa, and Waikoko) as impaired for Enterococcus bacteria (a fecal indicator) in their biennial reports, meaning that it exceeds measured levels that are considered safe for human recreation. In their 2020 State of Hawaii Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment Report, HDOH listed the Hanalei Bay Landing site and all four of its streams and estuaries as impaired for Enterococcus (HDOH 2020). These are the waterways where we fish, surf, swim, walk, boat, and play. Excellent water quality is imperative to the well-being of our community.
Throughout Hawaii’s post-contact history, cesspools have been the default option of wastewater management. Only recently at the State level has this been recognized to be a problem, resulting in Act 125 passed in 2017 which “Requires upgrade, conversion, or sewer connection of all cesspools in the State before 2050 unless exempted.” We at The Hanalei Initiative hope to facilitate upgrades in our community not just to meet the State mandate but to improve the safety and quality of our waters. Many homeowners have already made the commitment to protect our waters by upgrading their cesspools to septic or more advanced systems. We estimate about 150 homes to still be operating cesspools in Hanalei alone, a major contributing factor to the elevated bacterial counts. In cesspools, wastewater is untreated - dispersing pathogens, bacteria and viruses, as well as nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous that are damaging Hawaii’s fragile ecosystem.
Next
Steps
To begin to address this significant and complex challenge, The Hanalei Initiative was recently awarded a United States Department of Agriculture - Rural Development Technical Assistance and Training grant. The main purpose of this grant is to assess the improvement options for Hanalei’s remaining cesspools and older less-effective septic systems in order to evaluate all the costs and benefits of different types of area-wide solutions, from sewer systems to advanced septic conversions. The Hanalei Initiative will work in partnership with water system experts, including North Shore Hydrological Services and Seascape Solutions LLC, to:
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Install groundwater monitoring wells to set baseline conditions
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Conduct a comprehensive tradeoff study for town-scale solutions, and
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Facilitate educational workshops on the topic.
This work will take place from Oct 2024 - Sep 2025.